Archive

I’ve been using Shaw for internet and cable TV for years. And I’ve been leery of the quality of the Telus Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), especially when the last bit of the feed into my condo is over twisted pair wires originally intended for voice-only telephone. But I noted the picture quality at my son’s (detached) house was quite good with Telus. Further the Telus internet upload rate was claimed to be double that of Shaw’s for the same price.

But my main incentive to explore Telus was my desire to see all the games of the Montreal Canadiens, which would require the French sports network, RDS, which Shaw only offers in Standard Definition (SD). Telus offers the HD feed.

So to make a long story a little shorter, I switched to Telus, despite the dire warnings from Shaw that I wouldn’t get the internet speeds promised, I found that I did get the promised 1Mb/s upload, and 14.5Mb/s download consistently. And I found the following:

Music channel audio quality (which I use a lot) is much better with Telus, although they do not show the title of the current song playing like Shaw.

The Telus user interface is more responsive and much easier to use, for example I can filter the program guide to only the channels I am subscribed to, or further to just my favourite channels

Telus can record 3 HD programs simultaneously as opposed to 2 for Shaw. (Telus does not promise you can get 3 HD, but the software tests the line quality and if it’s good enough, allows this. Otherwise it degrades the capability to SD signals, only promising one or two HD recordings, the balancing being SD).

It was cool (but useless) to have the caller ID display on my TV screen when the phone rang.

The Telus PVR doesn’t auto-prompt to extend time on live recordings like Shaw, but does allow a max of 3 hours extra as opposed to 2.

The Telus PVR storage is vastly larger: 200 HD hours vs. 20 on my four-year-old Shaw PVR. Not an issue for me as I don’t watch much TV.

Telus offered a free Samsung Galaxy Tablet on a 3-year contract.

…and finally the picture quality: Telus was much more pixelated and blurry than Shaw on movement in HD scenes (terrible for sports) and the SD quality was appallingly bad, even on static images.

So the Telus technician came back and worked hard on improving the quality, to no avail.

So it’s back to Shaw for TV, but I’ll stick with Telus internet. And hope that Shaw offers RDS HD before the hockey season starts. Bad news is that the quote I got for the package I wanted from Shaw was incorrect, it’s actually $3/month more. Good news is that Shaw is giving me a six-month discount for switching back.

EDIT: So I just had Optik TV disconnected, and I have to say that the Telus customer experience was much better than that with Shaw:

Telus gave discounts, both on my initial order (took $5/month off on the long-term bundled rate) and even after I cancelled the TV they kept the discount for my remaining Internet service, which I had ordered at the same time and kept. They considered that I had my home phone with them for years as well, and had met my end of the bargain in trying to use all three services, so I got the full bundled pricing. They also let me keep the Samsung tablet.

Shaw stuck to listed prices and had no wiggle room. One Shaw rep misquoted me and the next rep did not honour that pricing and so I’m paying more for the TV.

Telus reps were friendlier, more understanding.

The Telus tech worked his butt off to try and make it work, including giving me his mobile number, and talking to me on his day off

So I’d definitely recommend Telus over Shaw from this point of view. Dang twisted pair!

Only a few weeks after releasing Microsoft Flight, the company announced today that it is developing the next generation of flight software. Here’s an excerpt from marketing VP Bög Uslãmé’s description of the new product.

“Microsoft has shown a keen understanding of the user experience when it comes to flying airplanes and stuff like that on computers. There’s a certain magic which we have learned to capture, interrogate, channel and evaporate. After developing progressively more intricate software for this market through many versions culminating in Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Microsoft Flight showed that we could simplify the paradigm, reduce the functional and geographic scope, convince ourselves we were broadening our appeal, minimize the UI, and still generate a significant return on investment. All while ensuring that the user thinks they are having fun. So now we’ll take this passionate approach one step further with the realization of a focused vision in our new product, Mi Fli. The name says it all: shorter, ambiguous and stimulating. We anticipate that arguments over pronunciation of the name will provoke flame wars at AVSIM, raising consumer awareness with optimal marketing involvement, ie none. And we’re honored that this will be first product of many from Microsoft using the new ‘Mi’ brand identity.

“The new user-centric feature scope and accessible two-key UI will allow us to minimize customer feedback and the need for infrastructure and support, maximizing the long-term viability of the product. This also eliminates the potential for distracting third-party development enhancements.

“Of course we’ll make optimal use of user attention bandwidth, with a five-minute splash screen and subsequent contorted Windows Live Games sort-of-XBox-but-not-really online validation and ad-push process. At every opportunity our valued customers will be presented with a slideshow to encourage purchase of expansion packs they already have, and others they don’t want. If they do attempt a purchase, lucky users will randomly trigger a hidden gem: ‘Can’t retrieve information from LIVE. Please try again later. Error code 8007271D.’ All part of our playful engagement with our valued customers, further augmented by our proactive Google … I mean, Bing-ranking of searches for that code with irrelevant and misleading KB articles on Zune.

“As always, we won’t specify availability date or features until well after the product is released, but we will publish periodic screenshots and low-res stuttery teasers without explanation that will encourage rampant and inaccurate speculation. But, off the record, based on a reduction in the development team to one half-time employee and the one paragraph feature list, it’s likely the product will be released no later than Thursday. Meanwhile, we’ll give customers attempting to harvest meaningful information from our website the opportunity to ingest content-free team member interviews.

“You might expect the usual discussion, ‘Is it a game? Or is it a simulator?’ to be bypassed through our innovative approach of offering the features of neither. But we know our true die-hard Microsoft … I mean, Mi … fans will still endlessly debate this question.

“From a personal marketing point of view, I’ve found it refreshing to work with half of a malleable gender-free ethnic-neutral location-nonspecific engineering team member who can design to specification without the need for dialog, discussion or any kind of human interaction.

“We’re excited about this cutting-edge next-generation user experience enhancement package. I look forward to Mi Fli being open for business. The future is bright. Join us on our journey.”

Proponents of X-Plane immediately decried the new product, stating, “X-Plane has a much more realistic flight model. And it almost has believable scenery.”

Share this:

Often it’s considered that association football (soccer) is not a big deal in Canada. But I remember even as a kid in the Montreal suburb of Beaconsfield that there were 100 organized teams in a population of 20,000. I think though that once kids reached a certain age opportunities vanished for growth, or interest went elsewhere. Hence the fact that Canada has only once made the World Cup (1986) and was eliminated in the first round.

So what is there about soccer that appeals/does not appeal here?

The lack of scoring

I don’t think this is a big factor, the superb ball-handling, er ball-footling, skills of the players are amazing, as is the playmaking.

The refereeing

It’s almost impossible for even a good referee with his assistants to see the details of every move, especially with the rampant theatrics (see cheating, below). But there’s a danger of assuming that a fair outcome is what is intended. Questionning calls adds an element of spice and controversy that I’m sure inspires much post-game discussion. With such a low-scoring game, a single bad call can determine the outcome. So perhaps the emphasis in the sport is more on adding excitement than having the best team win. If fairness was important, they’d have replay reviews, even if it did slow the pace of the game somewhat. So, if it’s the dynamic discussions after the game and in-game arguments at the pub you like, give a bonus to the game for this. If you prefer a more meaningful outcome, the game misses the ball on this one.

The cheating

All sports have fakery, but the blatant and transparent trickery of so many of the players is hardly sportsmanlike, and makes the players look like pansies. This I’d guess is a big turnoff here for anyone new to the game. The commentor’s lame excuses of “it’s all part of the game” and “all teams do it” are just a further turnoff. Big minus for the game.

The timing

Compared to the anal retentive pseudo accuracy of the timing for games like hockey and basketball (where tenths are second are meaninglessly counted towards the end), the playful and vague way the game is timed, with the referee throwing a mental die to determine added/stoppage/injury time is a refreshingly relaxed approach. And I like the fact that they don’t whistle down a play in mid-flight, the referee will blow his whistle at a lull at whim. Add that to the almost continous play, and you can score points for footy on this one.

Commercial interruption in broadcasts

The playing time is not interrupted with TV commercials in Canada and the US. Yum.

The competition

In Canada, our version of football, hockey and baseball (and to a lesser degree basketball and a myriad of other sports) are well entrenched. And when that’s what Canadians grow up with, that’s likely what’s familiar and comfortable.

But if that’s the case then since so many kids play soccer here, why isn’t it more popular? The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation thinks it is, carrying as many as 16 World Cup-related programs per day, including up to five games on two networks.